I need to get this out of my system. My mother died of Covid-19 on 18 April 2020, in a care home 260 miles away, alone. I said my final goodbye to her via mobile 'phone as I was not allowed to visit. Two weeks later I drove to…
Since Mary Myatt and I began the HUH project just under a year ago, I have felt increasingly ignorant. I have come to realise that for the duration of my two secondary headships – a full 18 years – I knew little about the content of what was taught in schools. Shameful,…
What follows is an introduction to my Curriculum Masterclass on 6 January, part of Tom Sherrington's Curriculum Masterclass series. You can book a ticket for the live event and/or access to the videos, here. As part of our HUH project, Mary Myatt and I have engaged in…
My two favourite leadership gurus are Viviane Robinson and W. Edwards Deming. I use them in the same slide deck on the science of change. On this slide, the industrialist who was central to the emergence of Total Quality Management and the educational leadership guru collide (the quotation could easily…
Uckfield Post Office, 1955 Harry Tomsett, second row, centre My dad was a postman from the day he left school at the age of 14 until he died, 43 years later. I have written at length about him. His life story is the narrative thread which runs through my first…
I like the notion of simplexity: making it is as simple as possible to complete a complex task. Teaching a class of 32 students on a wet, windy Thursday afternoon in November is incredibly complex; there are, however, a number of simple processes which – if implemented with care and attention…
We know that students’ outcomes depend upon the quality of teaching which, in turn, depends upon the quality of school leadership. As we emerge from the shadow of the pandemic and find all our students struggling to counter the impact of lost learning – our most disadvantaged students falling behind their…
‘What stuff do you want your students to know, understand and be able to do if you have taught them a rich, challenging subject curriculum?’ This question is at the root of all our conversations in our new book Huh. I got a grade A at A Level mathematics nearly…